


Bound

by SteveGarbage



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Duty, Family, Gen, Inquisition Agents (Dragon Age), Magisterium (Dragon Age), Magisters, Tevinter Imperium (Dragon Age), Venatori
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-02
Updated: 2020-09-15
Packaged: 2021-03-06 15:35:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 22,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26251282
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SteveGarbage/pseuds/SteveGarbage
Summary: After being captured by the Inquisition, the Venatori mage Cassius Terro was given a simple sentence: Return home. An upstart Praeteri adopted into a fading Altus family, Cassius had already risen high for his low birth. With the Imperium divided into factions after the rise of the Elder One, he finds himself tangled in a precarious web - bound by his loyalties, duties and promises.
Kudos: 8





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I do not use trigger warnings. This story may contain adult themes and situations. It is currently rated T for teens and above.

**One**

He was bound.

Even with fires crackling in the braziers and the collective breath of the hundred-or-so onlookers gathered, the great hall of Skyhold felt cold. The fortress sat perched high in the snow-capped mountains, true. Summer in the south wasn’t nearly as wet or humid as the weather along the bay of the Nocen, either. 

But he couldn’t rightly blame location for the cold that hung in the hall. It was the why, not the where, that attributed to the chill.

Justice was always served cold, he knew.

The guard tugged at the rope cord that wrapped his wrists, pulling him between the soldiers and nobles that lined either side of the hall, most of their eyes glaring at him. 

They looked at his white robes and the thin armor that lay beneath it. They looked at the short-cropped beard along his jaw, shadowing over olive flesh. They looked at the heraldry on his clothes, the two twisted serpents that marked him as their enemy. If they could see the blazing sun medallion that dangled at the end of the thin chain around his neck, no doubt they would scoff and call him heretic.

He had pulled back his hood to expose his head. He did not intend to hide, from who he was, where he was from or what he had done.

The soldier gave a slight shove when they reached the front of the hall before the dais. He looked at the man seated before him, brown-haired, stubbled. The Herald wore no crown or circlet, no jewels, no heraldry. The man in a basic grey uniform leaned forward in the rather spartan chair.. His left hand, over-turned on his knee, glowed slightly.

“Your Worship, I present before you now the Venatori mage Cassius Terro,” declared the Antivan woman dressed in gold and jewels at the bottom of the dais as she referred to the listing on her handheld tablet. “He was leading a small contingent of Venatori in the Fereldan Bannorn. With aid from the local landholders, our soldiers were able to encircle and ambush his company. They surrendered after minimal bloodshed.”

Cassius slowly bent, resting his right knee onto the floor as he tried to balance with his hands tied.

“Herald,” he said as he lowered his head respectfully. “I thank you for personally sitting in judgment over me, sir.”

“You may rise,” the Herald said waving up with his hand. “But tell me, what were you and your Venatori doing in the Bannorn?”

Cassius pushed himself to his feet, straightening. He glanced for a moment at the dark tapestries hanging from the walls with their sword-and-eye and markings staring down on him. The stained glass windows behind and above the Herald glowed lightly in the overcast dim of the mid-morning. Hushed whispers indistinctly rolled through the hall as the spectators waited.

“We received intelligence that you were heading toward Crestwood, sir,” Cassius said. “My orders were to intercept your party.”

“Your orders were to ambush me?”

“Yes, sir.”

“To what end?”

Cassius did not hesitate to answer. “To eliminate you, sir.”

They had crossed the Fereldan plains until the rolling farmland began to give rise to hills. He had decided the rocky outcropping overlooking the highway would be the best vantage to land an ambush. The Herald was still two days out from their position when the local levies, bolstered by a few of the Inquisition’s scouts, fell upon them at night.

His men would have fought to the death, if ordered. But the Fereldans were many and the young lord was inexperienced. He had chosen to surrender his forces, to save them.

The young lord cursed him for cowardice as they were hauled in chains to Skyhold.

His admission caused a stir through the hall, a rise of surprised chatter that was quickly quieted by the guard in the corner pounding the butt of his greataxe against the floor.

“You don’t deny that you were sent to kill me?” the Herald asked.

“No, sir. My father raised me to believe that honesty is the best course in all things,” Cassius said. “I take full responsibility for my actions. I am willing to bear the punishment. I only ask that the young mage who was captured with me, Marinus Arrentius, be shown leniency, sir.”

The young lord was just a boy. He was only following orders. They were all only following orders. But someone would have to pay the price and he would rather it be him than the boy. Protecting Marinus, that had alway been the highest priority in the mission. Regardless of any other outcome, the young lord needed to be protected.

The Herald sat back into his seat, resting his right elbow upon the armrest of the chair as he brought his hand to his mouth to consider. The fingers of his left hand drummed along the knob at the end of the armrest on the opposite side of the chair.

In that moment of deliberation, another man stepped forward.

“Inquisitor, if I may?” he said.

Cassius’ head perked up as he heard the unmistakable tone of a Tevinter accent.

Dark-haired like Cassius, olive-skinned like him too except with a meticulously groomed mustache. He was almost certainly a mage. Although his clothes did not betray it, the way he stepped screamed it. The width of his stance and the way he presented his body spoke of the rigorous training in one of Tevinter’s Circles. 

Before the Enchanters taught a single ounce of magic, the early years involved several unsparing months of etiquette. To be a mage was one thing, but to look and act like a mage of the Imperium was something more, something greater. Cassius himself had gone through those lessons several years ago. He could still recall the rap of the instructor’s switch across his body to correct the small imperfections in the way his legs and arms moved, until they moved in a perfectly Tevinter way.

“Honesty, you say?” the mage said as he stepped in front of Cassius and looked him up and down. He began to circle him as he continued his inspection. “You’re clearly not old blood of the Imperium if you still have any scrap of honesty within you.

“Therefore you must be a Praeteri,” he said as he reached out, squeezing Cassius’ shoulder as if he were inspecting livestock at market. “A fresh Praeteri, I’d wager. Mother or father a mage?”

“Neither, sir.”

“Neither?” the mage said with a slight tone of surprise. “First generation then?”

He tapped the toe of his boot against the back of Cassius’ left heel, correcting the angle of the foot. Cassius had moved it, discreetly, and the man had spotted it. There was no doubt, now, that he was Circle-trained.

“Yes, sir. My parents are humble farmers--”

“From the northeast,” the mage interrupted. “Yes, I can hear it in your voice. I hope not from near Qarinus?”

“East of Carastes, sir.”

“Good for them. The Magister from Qarinus is quite an ass,” he commented with some small glee before continuing along. “So a first-generation Praeteri is willing to throw himself on the sword of justice to protect an Arrentius. It makes me wonder, then. Who are you to old Flavius Five-Daughters?”

How did he know of Flavius?

His patron was a Magister and an Altus, but he was barely known inside Minrathous and almost completely unknown outside of it, aside from around his villa in Asariel on the water.

This mage wasn’t a Magister himself. There were only a handful of young men in the Magisterium these days. And even among those, Cassius was sure he knew all of them. Even if there was a name he had overlooked, what Magister would travel south to serve a false prophet of the Orlesian Chantry?

The mage came around his right side, one hand pressing into his lower back with the other hand testing the thickness of his chest. The man raised an eyebrow and nodded slightly. As Cassius considered, the mage began to lean, crooking his head slightly to the side.

“Come on now. What happened to that young Praeteri honesty?”

His voice. The muted green color and the geometric pattern of the fustian velvet inside the collar of his shirt. His words. He had mentioned Qarinus, almost as if he knew it himself. Cassius looked at him once more and he could see the subtle resemblance there as he recalled the aged Magister’s face.

“You’re Dorian Pavus, aren’t you, sir?”

The mage stepped back at that and crossed his arms. He scowled, then looked back at the Herald, who had been sitting quietly observing the entire exchange. The mage tapped his foot, crooked his head to the side again as he turned his gaze back to Cassius.

Then he smiled.

“Let me have this one, Inquisitor,” he said. “Your spymaster owes me a favor after her birds shit on my copy of the _Tempus Infinitus_. I think I would like to collect that favor.”

“Are you sure? He did admit to attempting to have me killed,” the Herald asked.

“Only him and all the other Venatori and the Red Templars and countless others,” the mage said as he began to untie the cords that bound Cassius’ hands. “This Praeteri isn’t a killer, not really. And, if he does behave, well, you can just butcher the Arrentius boy.”

Cassius hoped that was just dramatic speech. No one would summarily execute a prisoner as punishment for another’s misdeeds. Well, they would in Tevinter. But outside of Tevinter? He hoped the southerners had a bit more naivety than that. 

He could not necessarily judge the Herald’s intent. Perhaps the man had been moments away from ordering Cassius’ own execution, had the mage not intervened. But perhaps the Herald did not carry such a heavy hand. He had, after all, spared Magister Alexius after breaking the Venatori’s garrison at Redcliffe Castle. Why was not clear, only that he had.

The mage finished unwrapping the rope that bound Cassius’ hands and tossed it over his shoulder. Cassius respectfully placed his hands behind his back without rubbing the chafed places on his wrists. The mage smiled at that as he reached up and adjusted the collar of Cassius’ robe, carefully folding down the crease.

“You and I are going to get along wonderfully, I think,” the mage said as he patted the fabric down and stepped back.

The Herald lifted his hand. “Cassius Terro, I return you to your cell here in Skyhold but place you under the supervision of my trusted companion Dorian Pavus. If you’re willing to abide by what he asks of you, I will fulfill your request and extend a merciful hand to your companion. If not, you’ll remain in your cell until such a time I deem it reasonable to release you. Is that acceptable?”

So he _was_ the errant Pavus heir! Magister Halward would no doubt be grateful to know the whereabouts of his lost son, if he didn’t already know.

And yet, now Cassius’ fate, and Marinus’ as well, lay within his palms.

“Yes,” Cassius said, bowing his head again. “Thank you, sir.”

He bowed his head to the mage as well. “And to you, Domine Pavus.”

Even outside the bounds of the Imperium, showing respect and deference to social betters was good policy. House Pavus was in the sky, miles above where Cassius’ lowly name sat in the grand machinations of Tevinter.

The guard turned to escort him out and Cassius dipped his head slightly down to avoid most of the stares being cast at him on his exit. On the way in they had been confrontational, disdainful. Now the eyes Orlesians and Fereldans were filled with suspicion. Had he been thrown into a cell or had his head removed, they would have smiled and nodded to one another and commented on a job well done.

Now he was a Tevinter in the entrustment of another Tevinter. No doubt there would be whispers circling the court by the end of the day. Or at least, there would be if the Herald’s court operated at all like Minrathous.

The air of the hall did not feel any warmer now without the looming prospect of a blade at his neck. The chill was just different now, knowing that the uncertainty of his fate had been replaced with being cast into whatever manipulation the Pavus heir intended for him.

Dorian was at his side, shooing away the guard as he clapped Cassius on the shoulder as if they were old friends reuniting by chance at a roadside inn.

“Let’s not ever call me ‘Domine’ again. I’m no master to you,” he began.

“As you wish,” Cassius said as they passed between the large open doors of the hall and out into the midday gloom of Skyhold’s yard.

“You reek of the Imperium’s propriety,” Dorian said. “It turns my stomach, and not from some figurative concept of homesickness but from actual, literal nausea. But I suppose you were taught to ‘know your place’ and ‘respect your betters’ and so on.”

Cassius didn’t know what to say to that, so he said nothing instead as he began to descend the steps from the main hall on the return trip to the dungeon.

“You’re Venatori, but you’re the first one of the Venatori not to walk into that hall with his nose in the air and some sense of undeserved superiority. I find that curious,” Dorian said.

“I have nothing to gain through arrogance.”

That caused Dorian to throw his head back in laughter, nearly missing a step in the process and tumbling to the bottom of the steps. He quickly corrected his gait, catching the next stair more solidly as he placed a hand across his stomach to try to stanch his mirth.

“Spoken like no Tevinter man ever,” Dorian said as he wiped the corner of his left eye at the amusement. “If you sucked all of the arrogance out, Tevinter would collapse into a gelatinous pile like a man suddenly bereft of all his bones.”

As they reached the bottom of the stairwell, Pavus stopped and cupped his hand beneath his right elbow, adjusting the curled tip of moustache with his right hand.

“No, Terro, I think you and I are alike, despite our vastly different lineage,” Dorian said. “I suppose the coming weeks will tell me whether my assessment of you is correct.”

“Pardon my asking, but what is it you intend of me?” Cassius asked. That still wasn’t clear. And yet already Pavus was making sweeping evaluations of him. What could he possibly know in the few brief minutes of interaction?

It was clear that Pavus held no love for the Imperium or his father, that much was clear. But why, exactly, had he fallen in with the heresiarch of the Orlesian Chantry? 

And what could he truly know of Cassius? He was a Pavus, one of the Magisterium’s most elite houses. He was the product of the union of not only Halward Pavus but of Aquinea Thalrassian and her family’s deep-seated and influential imperial roots. Someday when his father passed, he was poised to inherit great wealth and power Magister Halward had been cautiously accumulating for years.

Cassius had grown out of a one-room shack on a small tract of land outside Carastes. His parents had little beyond their humble farming implements, the thatched roof above their heads, a few fatty pieces of livestock and their right to till the land. Had he not been blessed with the gift, he too would be spending his springs swinging a hoe, summers spent watering and weeding, autumns in harvests and winters waiting in hope that there would be enough food to last until thaw.

He hoped his parents had been able to put the small sums of money he sent back to them to good use. It had been years since he had last been home. And how grateful he had been when Valerie chose to take his younger sister on as a handmaiden in Asariel. Now Caela enjoyed the comforts of the villa instead of the hardships of the land, too.

Pavus smiled. “We can leave that until tomorrow. I believe you know your way back to the cells?”

He turned to return to the great hall, leaving Cassius alone at the bottom of the steps. A prisoner, unfettered, but still held. Even if he chose not to return to the dungeon, there was nowhere he could reasonably go inside the fortress. Soldiers patrolled the walls and even if he made it out the gate, the winding path down the mountain would only spill him into the Inquisition camp in the valley below.

For now, he would remain. He had little other choice.

“Pavus,” he asked up the stairs to the retreating Magister’s son. The mage stopped and turned. “If I might make a request?”

“Dealing in favors is a dangerous business,” Dorian answered. “I sure hope you learned that during your time in the Circle.”

He did, once or twice. And he further confirmed that Pavus was a perceptive man, knowing that Cassius had been Circle-trained.

“Would it be possible to get ink and paper, that I might write a letter home, to inform them of my whereabouts?”

“I’ll see that some is sent down,” Dorian said without even a moment’s consideration, which seemed altogether suspicious. “And I’ll even see if I can get it sent without the Spymaster pawing through its contents. Just this once.”

That made the entire request seem even more suspicious and Cassius suddenly wished he hadn’t asked at all. 

Dorian turned again and continued back up the stairs to the hall. Cassius turned the other way, heading down the door in the fortress walls that would return him to the steep downward stairwell to the cells beneath Skyhold.

There was little else he could do.

\-----

It was evening when the guard arrived at the bars of his cell with the small inkpot, a pen and a few pieces of paper.

He glanced over his shoulder before he passed the items between the bars. Cassius took each, but observed the nervous way the soldier glanced behind him. Was Pavus breaking some sort of rule by sending the items down?

Without a word, the man turned around and left, back out of the door and up the long stairwell.

“What was that about?” Marinus asked from the cell adjacent to the right. The young man had been tossing pebbles out of his cell into the walkway, but it sounded like he was now standing at the bars judging by the shake of metal.

“Just some paper,” Cassius said as he crouched down to the floor, carefully setting down the bottle of ink before setting down the papers next to them. He wished he had a table, or at least, something more solid to write upon than the roughshod floor of his cell. But he would have to make do.

“Are you writing home to my uncle? Are these heretics asking ransom for my release?” Marinus questioned.

“Not yet,” Cassius said. Perhaps tomorrow they would. What did Pavus want with him? Whatever it might be, if it could secure the young lord’s release, he would be duty-bound to consider it.

“Then what?” Marinus pressed with little patience.

Cassius dipped the pointed tip of the quill into the ink, sliding it across the stone floor to test its point. The ink was good, the pen good too, as he swept the letters of his name in tight script. It was not nearly as nice as the good stationary the Magister’s wife Junia had gifted him for his name-day last year, but it was better than nothing.

“Just enough to send a quick correspondence home, to let your uncle know that we are safe,” he answered. “We will find out more tomorrow, when Pavus returns. Until then, you must be patient, Domine.”

He could hear Marinus snort derisively at the thought as he scuffed his boots on the floor and returned to the back of his cell. The straw crunched as the young lord no doubt plopped back upon it. A moment later, a small stone skipped across the floor, followed by a long, annoyed sigh.

“Try to get some sleep, Marinus,” Cassius advised as he dipped the pen to get a fresh bit of ink. “We will know more tomorrow.”

He held the pen just above the page, taking a moment to consider. He would only get one letter and, therefore, could not waste it. If Pavus was true to his word, the letter might be sent without another set of eyes crossing it. But Cassius knew he could not trust in that word, as inviting as it had been.

Although sending it directly to Magister Arrentius might be most expedient, doing so could potentially compromise him. If the Inquisition was to send spies to shadow the letter once it crossed into Tevinter, they might follow it directly to him. Although Cassius expected him to still be at his estate in Asariel and not heading south to personally support the Venatori positions in Orlais, he could not be sure.

No, he would have to send it to someone else. Someone he could trust, someone who would know how to handle the situation and handle it with intelligence. There was only one person who could fill that role, as he touched the quill to the paper and began to write.

_Dearest Valerie,_

_I hope this letter finds you in the best of spirits. I assume the heat during this stretch of the summer in Asariel must be nearly suffocating. Even here in the south, the days become so uncomfortably warm that I long for the afternoons of our younger years when we used to sit under the pear trees in your father’s garden and talk for hours. If I close my eyes, I can vividly remember the contrast of the white blossoms against the subtle wine-red in your hair._

_Pardon the digression, but I find myself lately dwelling on such pleasant memory considering my current circumstances. While I hope this letter reaches you in comfort, I fear my accommodations are less than desirable. I write this letter from the floor of a cell, having been captured by the Inquisition while on assignment in Ferelden._

_The Inquisition caught us unawares in an ambush and I surrendered our position. Without going into much detail, the Venatori hold in Ferelden has been compromised._

_Let me first ensure you that I am being kept in fair conditions and am in good health. Although I am currently held under lock, they have treated me and the other soldiers who have been captured with dignity._

_Marinus is with me and he, too, is safe. Although his mood is rather sour with our current situation, please ensure your father that I am doing everything in my power to see he is safely released and returned to Tevinter. Although the Southerners are aware of his lineage, I believe I may be able to negotiate his release without ransom._

_With luck, Marinus and I shall be returned to you and your family before the harvest thanksgiving in Asariel. The prospect of seeing you again before autumn will be motivation enough for me to do whatever is needed to expedite our reunion._

_I know that I have already burdened you with the unpleasantness of my misfortune, but I must beseech you for one final favor:_

_Please relay this information to your sister, my precious wife, Andria._

_I fear that news of my capture will put her in distress, and if there is anyone in this wide world capable of comforting her in her hour of need, I know there is no one more suited to the task than you._

_In highest hope that we meet again soon;_

_Your loving brother by marriage, but forever bonded to you by our enduring friendship,_

_Caz_


	2. Chapter 2

**Two**

The horses slowly walked along the path, not bothered by the snow and ice that clung to the ground.

Pavus had arrived in the dungeon at dawn to retrieve him. The arrival woke Marinus, who stood at the bars of his cell issuing demands about the conditions he was being kept in, about his mistreatment and about his deserved release. Cassius cursed every word the boy spoke within his head, knowing that it all fell upon deaf ears.

Pavus smiled and laughed at the rant and didn’t respond to any of it, giving only a playful wave over his shoulder as he led Cassius out of the dungeon. Once in Skyhold’s yard, Dorian quipped that he would be glad to be free to talk without the noise of whining children.

He had walked Cassius to the stables, where three horses were saddled and ready. Standing with them was a red-haired woman wearing a purple cowl, with a longbow and full quiver over her shoulder and a pair of long, slender knives crossed in sheathes at the small of her back. Her eyes glanced at Cassius, cold and calculating, and she said not a word.

Even half an hour out of Skyhold as they rode up the narrow mountain path, the woman had said nothing. She rode a few lengths back behind them, keeping the same slow pace. Dorian led their small column, speaking loudly as he spoke of nothing in particular and nothing of consequence. 

He spoke of Orlesian wine and cheese. He spoke of the collection of books in the library at Skyhold. He spoke of the southern cold and how, even after months out of Tevinter he could not seem to shake the way it pierced him to his bones.

He didn’t speak of why it was he came south in the first place, what he had done since connecting with the Herald or what it was he wanted.

For an Altus heir, he didn’t act much like the other magisters’ sons Cassius had crossed paths with during his time in the Circle, in Minrathous, or in passing in other locales. There was a certain disregard -- or was it disrespect? -- for tradition and etiquette in Pavus that confused Cassius. Had he run away as the rumors said, or was he banished?

He couldn’t recall anything of Halward Pavus, other than his face. Serving as a page in the Magisterium had put him into contact with most of the magisters, their families, their slaves, even their mistresses, in a few instances. Despite his standing, Halward Pavus had rarely dabbled in any of the more dangerous spats on the floor of the chamber. He stuck mostly to more mundane policy, although he took a certain interest in any matter that might bring more wealth to his holdings. 

For a man like Cassius, of low birth and quiet demeanor, there was a lot to be learned within the back hallways of the Magisterium. Most magisters did not guard their words as closely as they should, especially considering some of the things they said. A little eavesdropping was mostly harmless, he had found. At least, he had managed to stay out of trouble during his time of service.

Had he not been assigned to serve Magister Arrentius and impressed him, he might have spent another year or two running errands from office to office until he aged out and was shipped to some functionary position in the capital.

Instead, Flavius had taken Cassius into his home, shared the bounty of his house with him and treated him almost as if he were his own son. He could never repay the man for that kindness.

“Here we are,” Dorian said from the front of the column as he pulled the reins of his horse and came to a stop, casually hopping out of the saddle to the snowy ground below.

The terrain had flattened a bit, but otherwise, there was nothing here. Was this all just a trick? Was everything that had occurred the day before been a ruse? Drag him out into the wilderness, deliver the sentence and roll his body off the side of the mountain?

If it was, he would at least walk toward his death with his head up. Cassius stopped his horse and dismounted too. Dorian had stepped away from his horse without securing it, but it showed no signs of leaving. Cassius let the reins drop from his hand as he followed the magister’s son, who continued to walk up the path.

“I find Skyhold terribly stuffy,” Dorian said as he stepped off the path, trudging through the fresh snow off the right side of the trail. “I don’t miss much of home, but I do long for the simple pleasure of the bath house.”

As he stepped around a rocky cropping, for the first time, Cassius could see the steam rising off the pool of water nestled within the snow, and smell the subtle scent of brimstone. The water was a bit cloudy, with a pale haze to the otherwise cyan water.

“I assumed this would be a more relaxing place to discuss business than between the bars of a cell, or, honestly, anywhere else in the fortress,” Dorian said as he leaned his staff down against the stones and began to unbutton his coat. “Nearly on the scalding side, but just right in the snow, I find.”

Dorian pulled his jacket away and tossed it onto the snow haphazardly. He turned his head over his shoulder as he began to pull his shirt over his head. “Come on now, don’t be shy, we’re all men here.”

Cassius turned his head to the woman who was traveling with them. She was a few steps behind him, her arms crossed over her chest. She was making no indication that she was going to join them.

“Don’t mind her,” Dorian said as he kicked his boots off. “She’s just here to listen.”

Dorian unbuckled the belt at his waist and let his pants drop, stepping out of them and kicking them aside. He looked over her shoulder to the woman and stretched his arms over his head, flexing his shoulders as he tightened the muscles in his rear. For a mage, Pavus did have a well-defined form.

The woman did not seem amused, as she narrowed her eyes into an even more icy glare than she wore before. Dorian shrugged, relaxed his body, and slowly slipped into the water with a sharp exhale as his skin came into contact with the steaming water.

Cassius gave one more look over his shoulder at the woman, then began to peel out of his own clothes, slowly folding them into squares and placing them down on the ground, setting his boots on top of the pile. Last of all, he removed his chain and Chantry pendant and dropped it into one boot before slipping into the water himself.

Dorian had not been lying when he said the water was nearly scalding. As soon as he slipped into it, he could feel the abrasiveness of the water. The sulfur smell was a bit stronger within the pool, but he could also smell a saltiness like the sea.

The spring was large enough for at least another half dozen people, but Pavus had already chosen a spot across on the opposite side of where they had entered. So Cassius settled down where he was, submerging his shoulders. The woman was behind him, where he couldn’t see. As Dorian’s eyes glanced up and gave a subtle nod, Cassius assumed that was the goal.

“How is it?” Pavus asked, stretching his arms along the lip of the spring.

“Very nice,” Cassius said. “Warmer than the springs in Hossberg.”

“I’ve never been,” Dorian said. “The Anderfels always just seemed so… drab.”

“It is a hard land, filled with hard people.”

“To put it lightly,” Dorian agreed.

Pavus tipped his head back, letting a slow groan escape his throat as he soaked. He dipped his right hand into the water and tossed some of the water over his chest, then scrubbed his palms across his breastbone before placing it back on the rim of the spring. He moaned again lightly, followed by a deep exhale.

And he didn’t say anything else for a moment, then a moment longer. Then it had been a good minute of silence, aside from Dorian’s pleasured utterances and the occasional splash as he tossed more of the steaming water across his chest.

Cassius would have leaned back himself to relax, if he had such luxury. He turned his head, looking back. The woman was still standing in the same place, observing, with the same look on her face. The wind blew, tussling the purple hood over her head slightly as a small strand of her orange-red hair slipped out from beneath it.

He turned back around, a sudden shiver creeping through him as he closed his eyes and rubbed a bit of the water across his face.

“Pavus, if you don’t mind, what is it you require of me?” he asked.

Dorian sat back up at the question and leaned forward, dunking his head into the pool before tossing his head back, a plume of water flying off the top of his head. He ran one hand back through his hair, while the other curled the ends of his moustache back into place. When he finished, he lifted that hand and pointed at Cassius.

“You’re the one who published that treatise about ‘flow,’ aren’t you Terro?”

“I am,” he said, a bit unsure.

What did that have to do with the Inquisition, or his current predicament? He had completed his study and written the essay during his penultimate year in the Circle. Several of the senior Enchanters were impressed by both the findings and the concise and clear way they had been presented. Discussion of it often included the phrase “just a Praeteri” in one form or another, but overall its publication had given him a reputation. That was more than could be said for many students.

Most of anyone, Magister Arrentius was awestruck by it and it had given him further cause to open doors into his household even wider.

“Yes, when I heard the name I thought to myself, ‘Now where have I heard that before?’” Pavus said as he placed his hand to his chin in thought. “When I read it, it seemed so obvious that I could hardly believe someone had not thought of it before, or, at least, not published it before. I, for one, had never thought of how much mana is wasted due to opening and closing the connection to the Fade in between spells. Tell me, how did you come up with it?”

Cassius didn’t see how this was relevant to his question, but he could not decline to share. Knowledge was meant to be shared, that it might benefit all.

“When I came to the Circle, magic was entirely new to me. It was a phenomenon I was experiencing, truly, for the first time. The lessons of the Enchanters were helpful -- I do not mean to diminish their contribution to my development in the least -- but I soon found inefficiencies that, while they might not impede a more naturally-talented man, were barriers to my advancement. I made it a point to identify and address these problems, out of necessity, sir.”

Pavus looked amused. “You saw a problem and you sought to correct it, yes?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And what did the Enchanters say to that?” Pavus asked.

“They,” Cassius started, recalling the many meetings he had with the enchanters to discuss his progress and time management, “did not see it as a particularly good use of my time. If I would just refocus myself on their lessons, redouble my efforts, I would soon break through, they said.”

“Yet you continued.”

“I surmised that I was not the first Praeteri to arrive in the Circle and experience difficulty with the curriculum, no,” Cassius said. “In fact, I was aware of several other students who had been sent home for inadequate performance. Most of them Praeteri, like myself.”

“You felt these problems were unduly dismissed by your superiors?”

“Yes, sir,” Cassius answered.

“They were ignorant of these problems, because they did not experience them themselves. Is that fair to say?”

“Yes, I believe so,” Cassius agreed again. “Or, at least, if they had experienced them once, they had since forgotten about them.”

Pavus stroked his chin with two fingers as he nodded. “And, in pressing forward without the approval of your superiors, you made a noteworthy advancement. One that, I assume, likely humiliated many of your teachers.”

Senior Enchanter Troilus did try to have him expelled shortly after the publication, after he had secretly submitted it through Magister Arrentius to the other enchanters at the Circle at Minrathous. Ultimately Troilus was outvoted by the others, resigned his post, and returned to his estate in Marnus Pell.

Cassius spent his final year in the Circle assisting many of the younger Praeteri who were struggling, with many positive outcomes.

“My research aided many other students,” Cassius said. “That is what is important to me.”

Pavus rolled his eyes at that sentiment with a derisive snort. “While your treatise was interesting in reducing waste of energy, the technique does come with the tradeoff of increasing the risk from demonic possession. Or do you disagree?”

“Not at all, and I noted such in my research, sir,” Cassius said as he tried to recite the quote from memory. “‘While manipulation of flow casting, as I have previously described, can reduce inefficiency in spell formation and maximize available output, in light of these benefits, the continuous draw upon the Fade and required focus to maintain such make the technique not recommended for extended use except by experienced magi or in conditions where ample precautions have been taken to ward against the denizens of the ethereal plane.’”

“To have such a significant flaw,” Pavus said. “So, then those who call it a landmark discovery could only be described as overly enthusiastic about the promise of your technique. This is no transformative discovery.”

Cassius shook his head, slightly, confused. Had Pavus asked him about his most notable accomplishment only to ridicule it?

“Forgive me if I have given an impression otherwise, but I don’t believe I ever claimed my work was such, sir,” Cassius said, humbly. “It is not perfect, but I believe it has been of some benefit to the Circle and the Imperium.”

Dorian glanced up, his eyes aiming over the top of Dorian’s head and he grinned. He lifted his hands out of the water, palms turned inward toward his body as he bowed his head slightly. He was clearly gesturing to the woman.

Cassius turned his head to look back at her again and her eyes caught his for a moment. He felt unable to turn away from her steely glare, knowing, sensing perhaps, that this was the moment she was making her assessment of him, much as Dorian had done the day prior in the hall of Skyhold.

She said nothing, but nodded her head down, slowly, once.

Cassius turned back around. Had this all been some sort of test?

“If I might inquire again, Pavus, what is it you require of me?”

Dorian clapped his palms down on top of the surface of the pool, creating a small splash and sending ripples across the surface of the water as he now openly smiled.

“I want you to go home to Tevinter,” he said.

Cassius waited, expecting further instructions than that. When none came, he shook his head slightly again.

“Is that all?”

Dorian laughed and gave a shrug.

“More or less, yes,” the magister’s son said. “There are only three things I require of you when you return to the Imperium.”

He lifted his right hand, touching his thumb and forefinger together in a loop and lifting his three other fingers.

“One,” he began, fluttering his middle finger before pulling it down into his palm. “You are not to return to martial service against the Inquisition in Ferelden or Orlais.”

That should not be too difficult. The Venatori stake in Ferelden was shattered. With Magister Alexius imprisoned by the Inquisition, there would be a needed period of reorganization. The Elder One’s first, Calpernia, likely did not know of him and likely would not miss him if he returned to Tevinter.

And after his capture, no doubt both Andria and Valerie would lobby their father to keep him at home, even if the magister did wish to redeploy him to the field, especially with Marinus’ fate still hanging in the negotiation.

“Two,” Dorian followed, fluttering his ring finger before retracting it. “At some point after your return, you will receive a letter, an invitation from a magister requesting a meeting with you. You will agree to meet with her. Whatever you do beyond that meeting, I leave to you.”

This demand sounded more suspicious. If Pavus were to arrange a meeting with a Magister, certainly it would be someone sympathetic to his cause. He said ‘her,’ which vastly narrowed down the roster of possibilities. It would certainly not be anyone currently loyal to the Venatori, such as Cressida Ceratori.

But it was the second part of the demand that gave him more pause. Whatever happened after the meeting was left to him? Could Cassius go and meet Dorian’s contact, humor her, and then go along his way unbound to the promise? That seemed suspiciously careless.

“Three,” Pavus said, lowering his smallest finger until his hand closed. He then rolled his wrist and opened his palm, holding it up and outright toward Cassius. “I would ask you only to do what you believe to be right.”

Of the three points, the last was the most vague and unclear. Do what he believed to be right? For who? For Pavus? For the Inquisition? For himself?

Cassius considered Dorian’s open palm and the subtle, cunning, arrogant shine in Pavus’ eye. He was certainly plotting more than he presented.

“Do we have an accord?” Pavus asked.

“If I agree, you will ensure that Marinus Arrentius will be safe?” Cassius asked, to make it clear. Nothing had been said of the boy and to carelessly overlook such a fact would be amateurish.

“Safe and sound and well kept,” Dorian agreed with a nod.

Cassius still hesitated. “Your terms are… imprecise. What will you have gained if I meet your magister, but then do not act in whatever way you predict I will? What if I merely return home after that meeting and remain there, with my wife and my family?”

“I suppose I would gain nothing but the ire of our dear Spymaster for letting go of a hostage without utilizing the leverage I hold against him,” Pavus said. “Beyond that, I will only gain doubt in myself that I misjudged you and, perhaps, am not as intelligent and cunning as I believe myself to be. 

“And that, itself, would be a terrible tragedy to consider,” he added with mirth.

Pavus had much to gain, perhaps, and little to lose except his pride and one, maybe two, Venatori prisoners of limited use to the Inquisition. Even if both he and Marinus were put to torture for every bit of information they held within their heads, it would not be of much value.

Cassius could not only gain his release, but further ensure the safety of Marinus, as well. The unanswered question was what did he lose by cooperating with Pavus? That still had not been cleared up. It likely would not be revealed, not at least, until he met with Pavus’ contact in Tevinter.

Cassius did not enjoy the prospect of being manipulated, but the dilemma was logically easy to resolve at this juncture.

He took Pavus’ hand, clasping fingers, and shook it.


	3. Chapter 3

**Three**

**_Asariel, 9:37 Dragon_ **

“Cassius, my son, I have something very important to ask of you.”

Magister Flavius dabbed the corner of his mouth with his napkin, then used the cloth to cover his lips as he coughed that hollow, barking cough into it three times before wiping his lips again and folding the napkin into his lap.

Cassius had known something big was happening tonight. He had been told to dress for dinner, as had the Magister’s entire family. Tonight, they dined in the manor’s banquet hall, with extra tables and chairs pulled in. More distant relatives of Magister Arrentius had come into Asariel. Several of the Magister’s lesser vassals and their wives and their children had also been invited.

It wasn’t any known feast day or holiday, so the lavish dinner beckoned that something momentus was occurring tonight. No one, aside from the Magister himself, seemed to know what it was about. The cooks and servants and household slaves didn’t know anything. Valerie hadn’t heard anything. Not even Kordelia, who managed to drum up all of the household gossip, had anything.

And then, as they entered for dinner, Flavius had asked him to take the seat at his right side at the head table.

The entire hall quieted as the Magister stood up from his seat, extending his right hand down until it rested on Cassius’ shoulder.

“Anything, my lord,” Cassius said as he glanced down the table toward Valerie for any clue about what was about to happen. When she caught his eye, she quickly turned her gaze back to her plate. “I am ever at your service.”

The Magister nodded, pleased. “Cassius, ever since you were appointed as my page at the Magisterium, I knew there was something special about you. I brought you to my home, sponsored you in the Circle at Minrathous, raised you here in my household among my own children. When I look at you, I think perhaps the Maker sent you here to be the son that I never had.”

“You honor me, my lord,” he answered, bowing his head respectfully before his patron. It was high praise to lavish on a Praeteri, especially a first-generation from a peasant background.

“No, it is you who brings honor to me,” Flavius said, tapping Cassius’ shoulder.

Flavius turned, looking down to his wife seated at his left side. Junia smiled, glanced at Cassius, then nodded to her husband.

“I have no sons, but I have had the privilege of being blessed with five beautiful, intelligent, energetic daughters. As I’ve watched them grow up and blossom into young women, I’ve always known that there would be a day for them to be married and that I would need to find honorable and trustworthy men for them,” Flavius said.

The Magister squeezed Cassius’ shoulder as he gazed down, his eyes full of hope and love. “Cassius, I would be honored if you would take my daughter’s hand in marriage.”

An excited gasp quickly cut the banquet hall as Cassius could feel all eyes cast upon him. As soon as Magister Arrentius had begun to speak, he thought his words might lead him here. 

But could he have ever hoped? Ever dreamed?

He was merely a Praeteri, regardless of how much of a bond Flavius felt for him. To refuse such a generous marriage would be an enormous slight to his lord. There was no way he could say no to such an offer.

It was a moot point, because Cassius never wanted to decline.

It had been a dream, the wildest, most impossible dream he had ever dreamed. He had grown up working the land, a child of poverty, only to find himself blessed with the gift of magic. It had been fortune alone that had brought him to such a comfortable life in Magister Arrentius’ home, but to ever conceive of the chance to marry his daughter?

He glanced down the table at Valerie, his heart nearly ready to burst at a forbidden dream realized.

“My lord,” he said, not taking his eyes off Valerie, his face beaming from edge to edge. “I could ask for no greater gift in the world than to take the hand of your daughter in marriage.”

The banquet hall erupted in a great cheer as Flavius pulled him out of his seat into a strong embrace. As they broke, Flavius wheeled his left arm around as his wife’s hip and all of his girls stood up in their places at the table.

“Thank you, Cassius,” Flavius said above the continuing applause of the family, friends, vassals and servants gathered. 

“I can think of no finer man for my Andria.”

* * *

**_Asariel, 9:41 Dragon_ **

Cassius inched the door slowly with the knob turned until it shut and he quietly let the latch engage with a near-silent click.

It was past midnight and the Arrentius estate was quiet. Aside from the candles left alight to illuminate the large central staircase and the dim light of the sliver moon coming in through the large wall of windows behind it, all was dark.

He had not intended to arrive so late, but his schedule had been dictated by that of the Inquisition and not his own. True to the pledge of Dorian Pavus, however, the soldiers had taken him to the borders of the Empire, given him a horse and set him free to return. He had ridden hard and fast down the Imperial Highway to speed his return home before turning east off the road toward Asariel on the Water.

He had been close enough that he had decided against staying at one last inn and instead decided to ride into the night and complete the final leg of his journey, even if it brought him home at an unholy hour.

Cassius quietly bent to begin unbuckling his boots, taking the moment to admire the floor tiles, the grand staircase, the night-blackened hallways to his left and right. It had been some months since he had joined with the Venatori and traveled south, so simply being here to see the features of the house again was a welcome treat.

He had been out of contact with the household, as his assignments had taken him far away from the Venatori camps and deep into Ferelden. There were no lines of communication. He had been dangled out onto the frontier to fend for himself. It was a precarious situation for the Venatori, which had been proven to be thus by his defeat and capture.

And yet, that stroke of poor fortune had swung to become a better one. Although the young lord remained under key in the custody of the Inquisition, he had been allowed to return. His sense of duty dictated that he should want to return to the battlefield, but stepping inside the manor had proven that his heart longed to be home.

As he looked at the darkened staircase, he wondered if he should quietly wake one of the slaves to have them rouse Magister Arrentius. It would be poor form to arrive at the lord’s house and not inform him of another soul bunking. 

On the other hand, he doubted his lord would care much if Cassius found his way to bed and did not make his presence known until morning. It had been a long journey and the hour was late. Beyond that, Magister Arrentius’ health was not what it had been and he needed his rest more now than ever.

Cassius stepped out of his boots and bent down to pick them up, making sure to hold the buckles so that they did not rattle against each other.

“Well, well, well,” a woman’s voice from the right said. “What have we here?”

Cassius glanced up from his bent position, caught red-handed in the doorway to the woman leaning against the wall with a midnight snack in her hand. 

She was draped in shadow, the dim of the household making her curly dark hair look nearly black, her long nightgown darkened in the corridor leading to the east wing of the house. Half a head shorter than Cassius, she was leaning with one shoulder up against the wall, her arms folded over her chest, her left foot raised off the floor as she scratched the back of her other leg with her toes.

Cassius watched as she took a bite of the fruit in her hand and wiped a bit of juice from the corner of her mouth, leaving the signs of a smirk as her fingers moved off her face.

“Valerie,” Cassius said, seeing that smirk and knowing better. “Don’t.”

That only made her lip bend upward a bit more. “Don’t what?”

Cassius straightened, holding his boots in front of him. He only needed to tip his head slightly to remind her she knew exactly what he meant.

She was Magister Arrentius’ oldest, the first of his five daughters, and his direct heir, although that status was more complicated in practice than on paper. A year younger than Cassius, she had been his peer when her father invited him into their household in his youth. Despite being the first daughter of an Altus magister, Valerie, like her father, had never looked down on him, although she had good cause to at the time. They had almost immediately bonded as siblings, with Valerie’s quick wit, smart tongue and shrewd mind her greatest assets.

Somewhat to her father’s dismay, she had also grown up headstrong. She had grown up with the knowledge that although she was first, she was still Flavius’ daughter and that meant that she would be immediately supplanted as soon as she was gifted with a younger brother. 

Then came Andria, then Kordelia, then Servilia and Flavia.

The magister and his wife were aging. Yet they persisted, they never abandoned hope of having a son, an heir, the next main-line Arrentius to carry forward the bloodline. After years without success and as hope had begun to fade, Junia became pregnant once more.

Valerie finally received the brothers she had long been waiting for.

That day, late in her teen years, she had finally come to realize that she was not just Flavius’ first daughter. She was, and would remain, his heir. And in what seemed like a day’s time she had changed and fully embraced the responsibility of that title.

She had never truly lost her playful side, only that it was now bifurcated by the reality that she was the future of House Arrentius and her father’s legacy and that came with its own set of burdens and pressures.

“You’ve been gone so long,” Valerie said as she sauntered over, “that you’re lucky it was me who caught you sneaking into the house and not one of the slaves.”

She stopped in front of Cassius, reaching up to adjust the collar of his coat, refolding the fabric and gently patting it down. She smelled like the sea and the wind and home. “They might not have recognized you and mistook you for a burglar.”

Valerie smiled as she raised her fruit and took another bite.

“Pear?” Cassius asked as he looked over the oblong green-yellow-red fruit half-eaten in her hand.

“What can I say? I’ve had a taste for them since your letter arrived,” she said, offering it to him for a bite.

“No thank you,” he politely declined. “What are you doing awake?”

“You know I don’t sleep,” she said. “Too much on my mind. Worrying. Wondering when you’d be home.”

“I hope you aren’t depriving yourself of sleep on my account,” he said as Valerie nibbled her pear.

“My father is the one who’s been a wreck since you left,” she said. “Not a day goes by that he doesn’t seem to wonder aloud whether you’re well. As for me, I can’t say you’ve been completely off my mind these past few months.”

“I’ve missed you all terribly, too,” Cassius said, “more than I realized, the closer I got to home.”

“I’m glad you’re back,” Valerie said.

“I’m glad to be back,” he agreed.

Valerie patted the collar of his jacket again, looked over the face she had not seen for months and smiled.

“For what it’s worth, Caz, I’m sorry,” she said.

Before Cassius could squeeze the word “don’t” out of his mouth again, Valerie pushed her palm off his chest, leaned back, took a deep breath, tipped her head up toward the ceiling and raised her voice as loud as it could go.

“WAKE UP EVERYONE! CASSIUS IS HOME!”

Cassius slumped as he could hear noises of people stirring upstairs.

Valerie grinned widely, took another bite of her pear and patted him on the shoulder.

“Welcome home, Caz,” she said, mouth half-full of chewed up pear, as her siblings and parents started to emerge at the top of the staircase.


	4. Chapter 4

**Four**

**_Asariel 9:37 Dragon_ **

_ “Congratulations.” _

Valerie had said it with tears starting to form in her eyes, about all she could force out of her mouth when he had managed to break free for a moment and try to talk to her. She placed her glass down and quickly excused herself from the dining hall, rushing away and up the stairs back toward her room.

Magister Arrentius scooped Cassius up shortly after, and with his arm draped around the young man, he went about introducing him to this relative and that vassal, with Cassius offering kindly greetings and accepting their well wishes with grace.

Andria, his newly betrothed, had been separated from him most of the evening, making her own rounds among the young ladies and the lordly wives. Cassius felt somewhat in a daze as he tried to pay attention to what was being said, all the while his eyes glancing around the room to see if the magister’s oldest daughter was coming back. He wanted to, needed to speak to her.

She didn’t return.

As the evening dragged on, Cassius finally found a free moment to excuse himself from the hall, finding his way out to the back patio, where the humid nighttime air offered little relief from the whirlwind of activity inside. It was dark, moonless, overcast. He couldn’t see it, but he could hear the rolling waves of the Nocen nearby off the coast.

He walked to the staircase, where the porch descended down to the ground level and off toward the beach but stopped, resting against the spherical stone bollard at the top of the stairs. Cassius stared out into the darkness.

Tonight, he was bestowed an honor nearly unimaginable, the chance for a first-generation Praeteri to marry into an Altus family. It was rare, in part because Altus bloodlines didn’t want the optics of marrying down a class, much less two classes. Typically families brought Laetan blood in only when they couldn’t find a suitable Altus match, or if a bloodline had become too intermixed among common families of the Imperium. To step down another class to the Praeteri, unproven lines of mages, was almost unheard of. 

But at the same time, Cassius was conscious of most of his lord’s business and he would have been at least passingly aware if the magister was seeking suitors for his daughters. He had known of the few matches Magister Arrentius had tried to negotiate for Valerie, although those negotiations never advanced beyond passing comments between this magister or that.

No, Flavius had chosen his second daughter specifically for Cassius, had chosen to make this match above any other possible options.

So why did Cassius feel like the world had been turned over on top of him? 

He knew why, although it was a feeling he could never vocalize, to anyone. His lord had made this match for him and he was bound to accept it. He understood that, no doubt as well as Flavius’ heir did.

“So this is where you went.”

Cassius turned his head to see Andria standing inside the doorway back into the house, her hands folded properly in front of her. She carried a small smile across her face.

Andria was different from her older sister. Where Valeria had a contentious streak, pushing boundaries and stretching the status quo of what Tevinter expected her to be, Andria had a more subdued personality. When she had been faced with her lot in life, to someday be married away in her father’s name, she had not only accepted but embraced the role.

Andria was courtly, well-mannered and kindly. She had very much followed in her mother’s image and example in that respect. Andria was devout, somewhat ironic as she shared the root of her name with the southern prophet who had led to the schism of the Chantry, and well-read. She was a polite conversationalist and knew when to speak and when to listen as any magister might expect of his wife and mother of his children.

She was slightly taller than Valerie and slightly thinner in build with a lighter complexion. Where Valerie chose to spend much more time in the sun, Andria spent most of her time indoors and out of the heat, with a pale tone to show for it. Her hair was long and straight, unlike her sister’s curls, and dark, without the subtle undertone of red that Valerie had inherited from her father. Unlike her sister however, she had light blue eyes inherited from her mother, distinct from Valerie’s brown taken from her father.

She was four years her sister’s junior. When he had come to Magister Arrentius’ household for the first time seven years ago, she had been just eight, nearly nine years old. In the time since, she had blossomed into a young woman and was very much showing the same kind of soft and refined beauty her mother had had in her youth.

“May I join you?” she asked from the doorway. She was the magister’s daughter. She needed to ask no permission, especially not from him.

“Of course,” Cassius said. 

She stepped down from the back door and walked to him and Cassius extended his hand out to take her by his side as she came within his reach. It felt odd, to hold her hand like that, although he knew that while it might be the first time, it would be the first time of many more to come for the remainder of their lives.

“You look beautiful tonight,” Cassius said, feeling it an appropriate compliment to bestow at the moment. They had little time to chat after the announcement before being pulled in separate directions. She had been wearing a modest white dress trimmed with a light blue lace that matched her eyes. A thin silver chain dangled from her neck with a small teardrop gem of aquamarine.

She had dressed perfectly for the role of the young betrothed that she had been cast to play tonight.

“Thank you,” she said softly. “You look very handsome.”

“You’re too kind,” Cassius said in return.

They exchanged smiles as an awkward silence fell between them in the moment following. What could he say to the young woman he had attended dinner with as a younger sibling but who now stood before him as his wife-to-be?

“This all happened so suddenly,” Andria said to break the silence. “I am honestly still reeling from it all. I can’t imagine what it’s like for you.”

“A surprise,” Cassius offered, “but a pleasant one. I am honored by your father and honored to be able to take your hand in marriage.”

Andria smiled and blushed, moving her fingers in the palm of his hand.

“How long have you known?” Cassius asked. No doubt, outside of Junia, she was perhaps the only one who had known what would play out at dinner. He knew Flavius well. He would not have simply sprung the betrothal on his daughter. If nothing else, Flavius loved and cherished his daughters, so much so that he would never give them away without their approval and consent.

“About a month,” she said. “It’s been hard for me to keep it secret. I didn’t tell anyone, not even my sisters. Father wanted it to be a surprise. I hope you’re not upset.”

Andria was so kindly, that Cassius did not doubt that she would put his own feelings ahead of her own, even in this moment. No doubt if he quietly objected to her now, she would seek out her father and ask him to reconsider on Cassius’ behalf. But Cassius had no reason to object. This marriage was a great honor. To reject it would be a slight so great that no honorable man could be expected to turn it away.

He was honor-bound, duty-bound, to accept it.

“Of course not,” Cassius said.

Andria smiled and dipped her head for a moment, reddening a little.

“I’m happy to hear it,” she said and swallowed, building up her courage. “I know marriages in Tevinter are chiefly political matters, to build bonds between families, to further bloodlines. But I am lucky enough to be engaged to a man whom I also love deeply.”

Cassius was surprised by that too. Andria was in love with him? She had alway been polite and kind to him, but no more than to anyone else that he had recognized. That was simply her personality and demeanor. He had detected no hint of deeper feelings, beyond the bonds he had formed with all of Flavius’ daughters like sisters.

“I had no idea,” Cassius said.

“As I intended,” Andria admitted. “It would have been improper of me to express my feelings like that. I’m of age now. I know I have to set aside my personal feelings and be open to accept whatever role my family needs of me. That’s my duty as a daughter of an Imperial magister. And yet, my mother and father knew my heart, even as I tried to hide it from them.”

“Well, thank you,” Cassius said, realizing how odd that sounded as soon as it left his lips. “I mean, I regret that I hadn’t realized how you felt before now. If I had ever been insensitive in my ignorance, please accept my humble apology.”

Andria smiled again and squeezed his hand. “You’ve always been a perfect gentleman to me. And it only further proved that I was right to admire you.”

Now Cassius could feel himself blushing, matching the redness of his betrothed. “I apologize in advance for asking, but when was it that you first fell in love with me?”

Andria giggled to herself, perhaps feeling embarrassed by having to tell the story. After she swallowed down her giggle, she smiled again. “Do you remember when our family was out riding and we got caught in that thunderstorm?”

He did. 

It was a little more than two years back. They had taken the horses out riding, the entire family — Flavius; Junia; the five girls Valerie, Andria, Kordelia, Servilia and Flavia; and Cassius. They had taken the horses on a leisurely trot down the shore to the north of the estate, where they could enjoy the sight and sound of the beach.

The weather had been spotty early in the day but had cleared somewhat in the early afternoon, enough for the magister to commit to the outing. However as they had ridden out farther from the estate, the sky once again clouded over, more so than earlier, as thick, dark rain clouds began to amass overhead.

By the time Flavius had grown pessimistic about the weather and decided to turn them back, it was only a few minutes before the first raindrops began to fall. And what started as raindrops quickly turned into a downpour, with a backing of thunder and lightning growing closer and louder.

And it was one of those errant lightning bolts and loud thunderclaps that had spooked Andria’s horse, causing the mare to shriek, buck and then take off down the coastline. It was a miracle that Andria wasn’t thrown from the saddle and seriously injured, but she screamed, holding on tightly as the horse sprinted away.

As soon as it had happened, Cassius had put his heels into his horse’s flank to give chase, standing low in the saddle as he pushed the horse hard to close the distance with the driving rain smacking his body like stones as he rode through the torrent.

When he had finally come alongside the frightened horse, he had found an equally terrified Andria white-knuckled around the reins, her arms and legs clutching the horse as tightly as she could just to try to keep from falling, the wild-running horse bumping and thumping her with each wide gait.

Cassius had pulled close enough to grab the reins on her horse, giving them a tug in hopes of snapping the mare out of its terror and getting it to stop. But the horse, frothing at the mouth and wide-eyed with fear, didn’t slow, jerking its head hard back against his pull.

Instead, he reached for her. “Andria!” he shouted over the noise of the storm. “Take my hand!”

The frightened girl, bawling but tears barely noticeable mixed with the streams of rain running off her soaked hair and down her face, shook her head nearly as wildly as the horse she sat pinned to.

“Andria! Please! I won’t let anything happen to you! Please, take my hand!” he called out a second time. She turned her head toward him with wide-eyed terror as the two horses ran in tandem next to each other, his extended hand stretched out toward her saddle. Cassius nodded, thrusting his hand toward her again.

She let go of the horse, reached out, grabbed his arm, wobbling as she tried to stand in the saddle with the wild horse still running beneath her, and then swept her leg over, leaping toward him. Cassius leaned and nearly fell himself as he let go of his own reins in order to catch her, guiding her to the seat in front of him as he regathered the fallen reins in his hands and pulled up his horse back to a gentle run, then a trot, then a stop.

He remembered the way she spun, facing him, with her arms wrapped around his neck, afraid to let go, as he watched her horse continue to speed down the beach and off into the storm until it was so far away he couldn’t see it through the sheet of driving rain. 

He had covered Andria with his coat, trying to shield her from as much of the rain as possible as he turned his horse and trotted back to the rest of their family.

It had become one of the stories Magister Arrentius told people like legends whenever he spoke about Cassius to others.

And, apparently, it had become the legend at the center of Andria’s heart, too.

“I’ll never forget how safe I felt in your arms after you rescued me,” Andria said now as they stood on the patio behind her father’s manor. “I wanted to feel like that for the rest of my life. I wanted to hold you again and never let you go.”

Andria stepped in, wrapping Cassius in her embrace once more. His arms fell around her, too, as she rested her cheek upon his shoulder and shut her eyes, falling into complete and total comfort against his body.

“And now, I never have to.”

* * *

**_Asariel 9:41 Dragon_ **

Cassius sat in the padded chaise in front of the open doors to the balcony, basking in the cool midnight breeze as he looked at the sliver of moon in the sky and listened to the waves.

Dawn would be approaching soon. He had tried to encourage everyone to return to sleep after Valerie had roused the entire house, but had failed miserably as the family spent hours with him upon his return. He expected most would miss breakfast, himself included, as they slept well past the sunrise.

His return had been a surprise to them, but they, in turn, had a surprise waiting for him.

“Are you coming to bed?” Andria asked as she approached behind him, resting her fingertips lightly on his shoulders.

“Yes,” Cassius said as he reached across his chest, resting his fingers atop her fingers on his right shoulder. “Just taking a moment to decompress before I try to sleep.”

He had always given himself a few moments of quiet to relax, to order his muscles to stand down at the end of the day and prepare his mind for sleep. In his youth, in his early days in the Circle, he had been troubled by nightmares and the danger of demons they presented from across the Veil. There had been more than one close call, thrusting him awake from his dreams to find his bed wet with sweat and urine from the vivid dreams.

The other acolytes had not been kind. He had not returned the favor, even when the students from Altus bloodlines awoke to piss-soaked sheets from their dreams from time to time.

Enchanter Marianna had taught him about calming and preparing his mind for sleep. The young, blonde woman was Praeteri herself, third generation, just one generation shy of her family being able to claim the title of Laetan, and had been tapped to stay on as a teacher for the younger students in the Circle. She had a way of connecting with children at their level. And, unlike many of the other teachers, she was kind and compassionate. She had been his favorite instructor. 

He wondered, sometimes, whether she was still in the Circle or if she had moved on to other pursuits. Had her family ever cross that final barrier and rise to that next rung of society?

After she had taught him those meditations, his dreams calmed and he found himself sleeping more soundly afterward. His performance in the Circle had improved, as well, as he was more well-rested, more at peace and less scared of his own gifts. He owed her a great debt for such simple methods that had unlocked his advancement.

Andria circled the chair, slowly lowering herself onto the cushions between his legs, leaning back into his chest as she joined him looking out the open door.

Cassius found that as she snuggled in front of him, his hands instinctively wrapped around her and came to rest on the burgeoning bump of her belly.

Five months, she had said.

He had been away from Asariel for five months on assignment with the Venatori. Valerie joked that he had left her sister with quite the going-away present. Kordelia snickered. Servilia and Flavia chuckled as they exchanged glances between one another, both unsure exactly what their older sister meant and both too young yet to understand why they were laughing.

Cassius asked why she hadn’t written to inform him. Magister Arrentius chimed in to remind him that not only was he out of contact, he had chosen not to for fear that Cassius would abandon his commision and try to return home. Cassius was needed in the war effort. His second daughter was well-kept at home with her mother and four sisters in his absence.

Cassius found he couldn’t disagree with his patron’s logic.

“What should we name our son?” Andria mused as she shifted, snuggling deeper into his body as she closed her eyes and let the breeze overtake her. “I was thinking we should name him after you. Cassius II.”

“No,” Cassius disagreed politely. His name was nothing worth memorializing. Their child would carry his blood but he would grow up an Arrentius, heralding his Altus lineage and burying his father’s lowly blood under the name.

If their child was born a boy, a direct-line grandson of the magister, he would rise to the top of the succession tree the second he took his first breath.

Assuming he carried the gift in his childhood, he would also be first in line to inherit Flavius’ seat in the Magisterium, once he was old enough to sit it.

Both prospects would no doubt chafe the young lord Marinus. As Flavius’ oldest, closest, mage relative, he currently carried the distinction of being next in line to the Magisterium.

Unfortunately there were no guarantees when it came to magic.

Not only had Flavius birthed five daughters, none of them had inherited the gift. Therefore, none of them could take his seat in the Magisterium. 

The Imperium prioritized men to women in its halls of power, but there were no prohibitions against women occupying the seats. The safest, easiest transitions of power were from a father to his son. Things became more complicated when sonless fathers were forced to choose between their daughters or their brothers, uncles or nephews. Families had been sundered and blood feuds that had endured for centuries had started when a magister chose a successor outside of his or her direct line.

There was little complication for Flavius Arrentius, however. He did not have to make that choice. None of his five daughters had inherited the gift of magic and therefore none of them were eligible. That had left Marinus as the most reasonable successor. As the oldest and only son of Flavius’ younger brother, he presented the best choice of stability for the family in the future.

However, should one of Flavius’ daughters conceive a son, that would almost certainly change the magister’s calculus.

Yet even Cassius knew that odds were stacked against the child of a first-generation Praeteri and an Altus Soporati, especially one from a family that was showing signs that its well of magic may now be completely tapped out.

But the gift was unpredictable. There were many stories of Altus children who never developed magic going on to birth children who did, and then those children continued to birth more mages in an unbreaking chain for generations beyond.

Whether their child could reverse the fortunes of House Arrentius or not, well, it would take several years after the child’s birth to find out.

“What if we were to name him after your father?” Cassius offered instead. “He’s given me everything. He’s given me you. To give him a boy, and better yet to name that boy in his honor, I could think of no greater gift to give to him.”

Her father had been plagued by the nickname “Five-Daughters” given to him by the other magisters and political antagonists in Minrathous. They bandied it like a dagger, to poke and cut at his situation and to constantly remind him how fast his star was fading. The Arrentius line had been in decline for generations and now, in some respects, teetered on the brink.

“Flavius?” Andria said testing it on her tongue. Cassius could tell from her voice that she was scowling at the prospect. “I don’t know.”

“Or, we could combine the two options,” Cassius offered. “How about Cavius or Flassius?”

Andria smacked his hand on her stomach lightly. “Now you’re just being ridiculous.”

“I don’t know,” he said. “Flassius sounds pretty good to my ear.”

“It sounds lewd is what it sounds,” Andria said, giggling to herself before turning the conversation. “I hope the time away hasn’t turned you Flassius. I’ve been waiting a long time for you to come home.”

Andria rubbed her hand down his leg, craned her neck and puckered her lips. Cassius fulfilled that request by planting a kiss on her.

“I suppose baby names can wait for another day,” Cassius said as he lifted from her lips and as Andria’s hand reached around the small of her back where she sat between his legs. “And here I thought I was winding down for sleep.”

“You’ll sleep wonderfully tonight, my love, I promise.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Five**

**_Minrathous 9:40 Dragon_ **

“We are grateful for your support, as always, Flavius.”

Magister Arrentius pressed the pen to the parchment and scrawled his name quickly, signing over the rights to another tract of farmland, which included a small village with its own mill and a small dock that was large enough and in deep enough water to take medium-sized ships returning from Seheron loaded with commodities. The local wagon maker had become the richest Mercator in the area, with a steady demand for vehicles to ship goods further inland.

It was a prosperous little village on the northern outskirts of Flavius’ holdings, one that he had been convinced to sign over to the Venatori cause.

As Flavius finished, he slid the document over to Magister Alexius, who inked his own name to the bottom then passed it off to his page, who attested to it, stamped it twice, folded it and pressed the wax seal to it before scampering out of the room to have the transfer officially recorded.

“I only wish I could do more,” Flavius said as he reached for his glass of brandy, raising it in toast to Gereon. “To prosperity. To Tevinter.”

“To the Elder One,” Alexius added as they clinked glasses and drank.

Cassius stood behind his lord’s chair, arms folded behind his back, quietly observing. As Alexius sipped his brady, he placed the glass down and shuffled aside some other documents on his desk. He had one of the larger office spaces in the halls of Magisterium, at least twice that of the space that Magister Arrentius held. The walls were thicker and the doors spaced out more the higher one went into the business side of the great capital. The most serious negotiations required the proper privacy from prying eyes and eavesdropping ears.

“Is this the mentee of yours I’ve heard so much about?” Alexius asked, lifting his finger up to lazily point in Cassius’ direction.

Flavius turned in his chair, looking back over his shoulder. “Yes, absolutely.”

“Cassius Terro, sir,” he said in introduction of himself, bowing his head respectfully to the fellow magister. “An honor to meet you, Magister Alexius.”

“Flavius speaks highly of you,” Alexius said. “You look about my son’s age. How old are you, Cassius?”

“Twenty-three, sir,” he answered. 

He had spent the first seven years of his life with his family, working the land at their home. Just before his eighth birthday, when his gift had manifested, his father had driven him by cart to the city. They had dressed in the finest clothes they could muster and they had scraped together what little money they could.

When they arrived at the front gates of the Circle in Carastes, they had gone inside to the entry clerk’s office where his father and the mage behind the desk spoke for more than an hour, sharing information about the details of Cassius’ magic, his upbringing, whether he could read and write, his general health and beyond.

His father presented the small wooden box filled with their family’s fortune. The clerk informed him it was not nearly enough to cover the tuition. It was all they had, his father explained. The clerk rolled his eyes and made some comment about how he could petition the local magister to cover the shortfall. Depending on his mood, he might graciously choose to sponsor a young Praeteri from within his holding, or he might place a debt on their farm or, at worst, decline and the boy would be sent home.

By the time they had finished with all the registration it was late afternoon. When the time came, his father had knelt to one knee, given him a hug, and told him to work his hardest for the family. And, with that, he was escorted out of the Circle and Cassius was taken to his bunk in the dormitory and told briefly when and where to report the next morning.

At twelve, he was selected and sent to Minrathous to serve as a page in the Magisterium. It was there that he had been assigned to serve Magister Arrentius. His patron seemed to take a shine to him almost instantly. When the legislative term ended, he had offered for Cassius to return with him to his estate instead of being shipped back to Carastes. It was then that he had met the magister’s then three daughters.

After the summer spent in Asariel on the water, Magister Arrentius had informed Cassius that he had requested and been approved to have Cassius transferred from Carastes to the Circle in Minrathous and, if he desired, that he would always have a place in Flavius’ home.

He had been eleven years in Flavius’ service. Not only had he taken in Cassius, he had helped support Cassius’ family from afar and even graciously agreed to take his younger sister Caela into the household service.

“A little older then,” Alexius said. “I should introduce you.”

“Begging your pardon, sir, but I already had the pleasure of meeting Felix last year,” Cassius offered. “We crossed paths when I had come to deliver some documents to you and you were away.”

“I hope he was cordial,” Alexius said.

“Of course, sir. It was only one meeting and only very briefly, but I was immediately impressed with him,” Cassius said with another respectful bow of his head.

Alexius fidgeting in his chair, seemingly uncomfortable. He looked at Flavius, then at Cassius again, then back to Flavius. “All of this, everything we’re preparing, everything we’re planning, I do it all for Felix, that he might live to see Tevinter restored to its glory.”

“I couldn’t agree more,” Flavius said, raising his glass again as he sipped his brandy, shuddering a bit as the edge of the liquor hit him. “My only hope is to once again see the Imperium as it was and not as we find it today.”

Alexius nodded his head, saying nothing but only nodding in agreement and in thought. After a moment, he raised his eyes again to Cassius.

“When the time comes, the Venatori will move south, to Orlais and to Ferelden. I’ll need strong, trustworthy men to accompany myself and my son on the journey,” Alexius said. “If what I’ve been told about you by Flavius is true, I hope that you’ll be willing to accompany me.”

He served Magister Arrentius, but if Magister Alexius required his service, he was bound to provide it. Flavius had committed himself wholeheartedly to the cause, providing financial assistance and political support whenever it was asked of him. Everyone knew, at some point, the Venatori would require more than chattel and land and words. They would require men, men willing to carry the standard and march ahead to do the work required of them.

If the Venatori required him to serve southbound, he would serve.

“I am honored to serve, Magister Alexius, in whatever capacity I’m needed.”

* * *

**_Asariel 9:41 Dragon_ **

Flavius Arrentius sat in a chair, with his foot bare and atop a fluffy cushion sitting on a nearby stool, as he leafed through papers.

He looked tired, obviously having not slept well after being awoken mid-night by his daughter. Cassius tapped his knuckles on the door frame to alert the magister of his presence.

“My lord, you called for me?”

Flavius waved him in, the papers rustling as they moved with each wheeling sweep of the man’s arm. “Yes, come, sit with me.”

Cassius entered the room and sat in the cushioned chair across from his lord. He stifled a yawn as he sat, squinting at the beams of light coming in through the open window. His eyes felt heavy and dry. He, too, had only slept a few hours. He had awoken alone as Andria roused him. She had, at some point, slipped out of bed without waking him.

She would have let him sleep all day, had her father not requested Cassius in his study.

Flavius was in his mid-fifth decade and was more and more showing his age with each passing year. His hair was now more gray than the fading chestnut and auburn tones that were once there and now thinning more than the plume of hair he wore in his younger days.

Since he was first assigned as Flavius’ page twelve years ago, the magister had double in girth, from a stocky build well-disguised by smartly tailored closed to now more of a potbellied form. The features of his face had rounded out and he had developed a sizable second chin.

His health had also been in decline in recent years which had only exacerbated the transformation the man had gone through since his fiftieth name day. He had become far less active and the lethargy brought on by his ailments had manifested at the belt line.

But while his body had changed, the rest had stayed the same. He still spoke loudly, maybe a bit louder now than before as his hearing had begun to fade, and earnestly, with a hearty laugh that he used often. His life since inheriting his seat in the Magisterium twenty-five years past had given him plenty of cause for melancholy, yet even today Flavius Five-Daughters approached each day with a genuine enthusiasm and hope for a better tomorrow.

He had never been afraid to share that infectious lust for life and optimism with his family and his generosity expanded beyond the confines of his household. Cassius was proof to that.

“How is your foot?” Cassius asked, already having a pretty good idea of the answer without his patron answering. The bulge from the joint of Flavius’ big toe clearly looked painful.

“Worse than yesterday, but better than earlier this week, if you can believe that,” Flavius said as he lifted his foot slightly from the cushion, then plopped his heel back down, grimaced, and quietly cursed himself for having moved it at all.

“Have you been eating eel again, my lord?”

Flavius snorted. “You sound just like Valerie. ‘Father, you have to stop eating such fattening food.’ Damn it, Cassius, if a man can’t eat what he wants when he’s hungry, what’s the point of living in the first place?”

“What point is there in living if every day you are living in pain?” Cassius offered.

Flavius lowered the paper and looked at Cassius stone-faced. “I swear, the two of you…” he trailed off, waving over his shoulder. “Slave, go to the kitchens and tell them for supper this evening to fix, I don’t know, whatever the hell my daughter thinks I should be eating.”

The slave, who had been standing still and silent and nearly blended into the wall like the furniture, quickly strode across the study and out the door to obey his master.

“Happy?” Flavius asked.

“You have a grandchild on the way,” Cassius reminded him. “I would be heartbroken if something were to happen to you before he arrived.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” Flavius assured him with his usual confidence. “I’ll saw the damn foot off if I have to.”

“Let’s not be drastic,” Cassius said, which made Flavius brush him away with a swipe of the paper in his hand.

“Read these reports,” Flavius said, lifting a stack of papers from the nearby end table and offering them to Cassius. 

As Cassius took them and glanced at the top, they appeared to be reports from the Venatori agents in the south on their latest activities. The dates on them were old, although not nearly as old as Cassius might have expected for the distance they had to travel. Most of them appeared to have dates from more than a week after Cassius had penned his own letter back to Asariel from the dungeons of Skyhold.

He quickly leafed through them. 

The Venatori position in Crestwood had been routed by the Inquisition and removed from the area. The reports indicated that forces there had failed to subdue the Grey Warden Stroud and that instead Trevelyan had made contact with him and safely returned him to Skyhold.

A Venatori spy among the rebel mages recruited by the Inquisition reported that the Inquisitor was moving next toward the Dales to deal with the ongoing clashes between Celene and Gaspard’s forces. Venatori forces in the area furthering the violence between the two sides should be on alert and withdraw if under threat of discovery.

Magister Erimond continued to make progress with the Wardens in the Western Approach and preparations were advancing smoothly for the next stage of his mission there. While the Inquisition was now making progress into Orlais, their forces were currently too far to the east to be of concern at this time.

Forces were now being marshalled to the Hissing Wastes in search of old dwarven relics that could potentially help with the war effort. The Venatori were calling for all supporters to send excess slaves — ones that wouldn’t be missed if they happened to, or more likely when they did, perish at the work sites.

The last was a call for more assistance of all types — money, slaves, resources, weapons, manpower — and anything that their supporters could levy. Progress was being made and now was not the time to let up. The letter was sealed directly by the hand of Calpernia.

“Now that Gereon is gone, that woman has all but closed her fist around the Venatori,” Flavius said as he saw Cassius leaf past the last page. “Alexius, at least, I knew. A man of respect and worthy of trust. This woman, this Calpernia, who is she? To take orders from a slave…”

Flavius scoffed. Cassius glanced at the two other slaves waiting in the room. Neither moved, not even averting their gaze. Flavius’ overseer trained them almost too well.

“If she has the Elder One’s trust—” Cassius started to say before being cut off halfway by his mentor.

“I know, I know,” Flavius said. “I’m just frustrated. I wish I could be down on the front, not stuck here nursing these damnable maladies.”

He lifted his foot again, grimacing a second time as he set it down, just as he had the first time. Flavius cursed under his breath again and grimaced a third time as he tried to reset his foot to a comfortable position.

“Tell me, what happened in Ferelden? Your letter didn’t have any detail,” Flavius said.

“I didn’t trust that it would go out without the Inquisition’s Spymaster reading it first,” Cassius said.

“Smart,” Flavius agreed. “Praise to Pavus for getting it sent at all. Have you informed Halward of his son’s whereabouts?”

“I was going to draft the letter as soon as we’re done, unless you’d rather, my lord.”

“Take care of it,” he said as he waved it off. “So Ferelden? What happened?”

Cassius took the time to explain his journey after leaving the Venatori camp and his journey south. For a short time he had been with Alexius and the others in Redcliffe before being dispatched east with the mission to intercept and eliminate the Herald.

The intelligence their scouts had given about the Bannorn had turned out to be not only woefully incomplete but also glaringly inaccurate at several points. His group had been less conspicuous than he would have hoped just trying to find their bearings in the bread basket of Ferelden.

They had engaged in minor skirmishes here and there with Ferelden soldiers, bandits and freeholders too aggressive for their own good, but the journey had been, more or less, uneventful.

It had become apparent, however, that his dispatch had been stretched too far from their seat of power in Ferelden. Supplies ran thin and they had been forced to pillage. That had, in retrospect, left a trail that the Inquisition scouts had followed right to them.

By the time the Inquisition ambush had fallen upon them at night, it was quickly apparently they were outnumbered at least three to one. It was possible that they could have fought their way out, but the battle would have weakened his unit to the point that he would be unable to complete their mission. Even if they did survive the battle, they were running short on supplies and the missing soldiers would likely only draw more to the area to find their lost brethren.

In the heat of the moment, surrender seemed to be the logical best course of action.

That, and he couldn’t risk having Marinus killed in the fray. Had Magister Arrentius not ordered him directly to take the young lord wherever Cassius might go, he might have told the boy to stay behind. No doubt Marinus would have protested, loudly. Had Marinus not been there, it might have changed the calculus. With him there, it had made the decision easier.

“Did Pavus indicate when Marinus would be let free?” Flavius asked after taking in the story.

“Yes, once I fulfilled my side of our bargain, he said he would release Marinus home, my lord,” Cassius said.

“And what exactly did he ask of you?” Flavius inquired.

“His deal came in three parts. One, that I not return to battle against the Inquisition. Two, that I accept an invitation to meet with a magister contact of his, a woman. And three,” Cassius paused recalling the last and oddest of Pavus’ terms, “that I do what I believe to be right.”

“And what does  _ that  _ mean?” Flavius asked with a snort.

“I’m not sure, my lord,” Cassius said. “I had asked the same thing and Pavus offered no further explanation.”

Flavius chewed his lip for a moment as he thought. “You haven’t gone and turned coat on me now, have you, son?”

“Of course not, my lord,” Cassius said with a respectful bow of his head. “I am ever at your service.”

Flavius nodded as he picked up another stack of papers and leafed through them again, shaking his head. “I don’t like these reports. I don’t like what I see. I don’t like that Alexius is gone and I don’t like this Calpernia.

“That being said, I do trust in the Elder One to lead Tevinter back to glory, through the Venatori, through us,” he said. “It’s about time that the power of the Dreamers be restored and for Tevinter to rise back to its rightful place. I wish we could stop fighting those damnable oxmen long enough to get our house in order.”

Flavius dropped the papers into his lap and rubbed his eyes, then snapped his fingers at one of the slaves until the young woman moved from her place up against the wall and began filling him a glass. The girl delivered him a cup of water and he took it, shooing her back to her place against the wall. He gulped deeply from the cup and wiped his mouth with his sleeve.

“Pavus doesn’t want you to go back to the front?” Flavius said to himself. “Fine by me. I have need of you elsewhere. Go talk to the overseer and tell him to find, oh, eight slaves we can afford to lose. Take them to the market in the city tomorrow and get a good price for them. If that bastard Milo tries to cheat you, remind him I know about his ‘side business’ until he gives you a fair price. And go down to the land office and see what they’d give us for that tract along the inlet, about a half day off the Nocen, you know the one I’m talking about?”

“The one that floods?” Cassius asked, having a pretty good idea of the one that his lord meant.

“Precisely,” Flavius said. “But don’t tell them that. See what you can get for that.”

“Yes, my lord,” Cassius said. “And if you mind my asking, what should I do with the gold from these transactions?”

“Take half of it and put it in with the lenders, see if they can put it into a few good liens somewhere, something with value, something where we’re likely to turn a quick return. Ten, fifteen percent at least,” Flavius explained. “The other half, take it to Minrathous with you.”

“With me, my lord?” he asked.

“Yes, the Magisterium is convening for a special short session. Decisions need to be made about the oxmen. Even were I not hobbled, I’d consider skipping,” Flavius said. “I want you to go as my proxy. You won’t be allowed to vote, but that’s fine. Just sit in, take notes, listen. Return with a full report. As for the money, deliver it to Magister Porenni. Without Alexius, I can at least trust he’ll see that it’s spent wisely to support the cause.”

It was not uncommon for Cassius to make the trip to the capital on his own, but this would be the first time he was being tapped to represent his patron at the Magisterium. Cassius was no stranger to the halls of the senate, as he had accompanied his lord there for many years and many sessions now. He was familiar with the politicking of Minrathous, even if he was not there to practice it himself.

Asariel was the closest major city to the capital, so travel back and forth was not as burdensome as in the farther reaches of the Imperium. Carastes, his home, was either a sometimes perilous ship ride across the Nocen depending on the weather or, almost worse, a very long, roundabout trip by land around the bay.

Because of that proximity, Magister Arrentius often traveled north, even when he wasn’t feeling well. It was odd, even with a swollen foot, for him to stay home. He typically traveled by carriage now when there was any distance to be covered, so it wasn’t a matter of discomfort to have to ride by horse.

“Begging your pardon, my lord,” Cassius interjected, “but are you well?”

The question caused Flavius to bring a hand to his forehead, where he rubbed, wrinkling the flesh on his face. “I joined the Venatori more than three years ago. We were lying in wait for so long, gathering resources, biding time, making preparations. Everything was finally ready to go, our purpose ready to be seen to fruition. And then in a blink, more like a flash, everything went awry.”

He sighed, but then tried to force a smile and continued.

“There is still time to recover. It’s only that, sitting here, reading these reports, it giving me a terrible indigestion,” Flavius said. “I pray daily for success, that the Elder One might succeed in his mission and return the rightful power to the Dreamers. To me. To my family.”

Cassius could almost see Flavius sag into the chair. The fatigue in his face gave the subtlest hint of the stormclouds that existed behind his eyes and in the depth of his mind. There was a weight there, one that he had been carrying with him for years and that Cassius knew grew heavier and heavier by the year.

The critics in the Magisterium called the Venatori “radicals” and “cultists,” an extreme fringe embracing a lunatic ideal. They claimed they followed false prophets, promising the world and offering nothing by the way of proof. Had Tevinter not suffered enough centuries ago from such folly in the pursuit of godhood?

But what those critics failed to understand was that each and every soul committed to the Venatori cause was still a man or a woman, with earthly concerns. What he had learned in the south that he had not realized at home in the north was that Magister Alexius’ devotion to the cause had far less to do with the dream of restored Tevinter superiority and far, far more to do with his desperate quest to cure his son of darkspawn taint.

There were religious fanatics and Tevinter supremacists, sure. But when Cassius looked at Magister Arrentius, he didn’t see zeal in an Elder One that Flavius had never met or never seen, nor did he see a real drive to engage in a worldwide war to subjugate the south and destroy the Orlesian Chantry once and for all.

No, the loss of Magister Alexius in Ferelden weighed on Flavius heavily because, Cassius knew, the two men had more in common than just their Altus bloodlines and their commitment to the Venatori.

“I understand, my lord.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Six**

**_Minrathous 9:31 Dragon_ **

“Congrats again to you, Flavius Five-Daughters.”

The magisters raised a glass, toasting as they laughed. Magister Arrentius raised his glass and forced a smile, clinking with them as he downed his drink. As he emptied it, Flavius held the cup out behind him for the slave to fill it again. He had drunk five glasses already and showed no signs of stopping.

The business conversation over dinner had ended an hour earlier and had turned toward Magister Arrentius’ newest child. Flavia had been born with golden hair like her mother and barely cried after being born. She was welcomed into the Arrentius household with the love of her four older sisters.

The other magisters, however, appeared to be greatly amused by the fact that he had sired five daughters in a row. It was Magister Galitorix who had first tossed out the nickname Five-Daughters and the others had latched onto it with great humor.

After dining with the other pages in the cafeteria, Cassius had come to check on his lord and ask whether he needed anything else for the evening. Magister Arrentius had no immediate needs, but had asked his page to stay. Cassius obeyed, standing back with his arms folded behind him, melting into the wall like the slaves that attended the dinner service.

He watched and listened as the magisters talked briefly about military and trade matters before shifting to more personal chatter. It was not long before Galitorix brought up Magister Arrentius’ new daughter and the topic had quickly become fertile ground for the butt of many jokes hurled at Flavius’ expense.

His lord took each jibe in good measure, chuckling and offering platitudes and excuses. There was still time. His wife was still only in her mid-thirties and she had proven to be quite fertile. He even hurled an insult back in the direction of the older Magister Ravenna, a Laetan, that at least his staff still worked. That had drawn raucous laughter and a scornful glare from the man who was not likely to forget such a slight.

All the while, Cassius watched as the slaves refilled Magister Arrentius’ wine cup over and over and over again.

By the time the men had finally pushed back from the table and said their farewells as they returned to their quarters for the night, Magister Arrentius had finally called out to Cassius to join him, to help steady him as he returned.

They walked slowly, the magister swaying and stumbling on his feet as they made their way through the corridors with Flavius leaning heavily on Cassius’ arm.

“Those bastards,” Flavius muttered himself as they walked, approaching the staircase up, a daunting proposition in his state. They took the steps one at a time, with Flavius balanced shakily between Cassius on one side and the golden railing on the other.

“Don’t let anyone ever tell you Minrathous is a great place,” Flavius told his protege as they rounded the landing halfway up the steps and started on the second incline. “This city is nothing but a pit filled with cannibalistic snakes gorging themselves on one another. Bastards, every one of them.”

Cassius didn’t say anything as Flavius nearly missed a step, taking a second try at one of the stairs. As they reached the top of the staircase, Magister Arrentius clapped him on the shoulder. “At least I have you, my son. I envy you sometimes, free of having to deal with these bastards. You’re still pure, untainted by the filth that this city breeds.”

“Thank you, my lord,” Cassius said as he pointed the way toward Magister Arrentius’ door. They walked together again until they reached the door. Flavius leaned forward, bracing himself against the door frame as he closed his eyes and lowered his head, his cheeks puffing as he focused on breathing.

Cassius summoned a bit of mana to his finger as he traced the pattern on the lock on the door until the mechanism clicked and the door popped open. He scooped Magister Arrentius back into his arms and guided him into the room, kicking the door closed with his foot as they entered.

Cassius pointed toward the candles around the room, igniting the wicks with magical flame from afar until there was a soft glow in the room. He would leave the heavy curtains drawn over the window. It was late evening and there was little sun left, although he was certain Magister Arrentius’ wine-laden eyes would better appreciate the dim.

He guided his lord to the bed, until Flavius lowered onto the mattress, sitting on the edge of the bed. Cassius stepped back, looking at the magister as he sat slumped, breathing loudly.

“Is there anything I can fetch for you, my lord?” he asked.

“A bucket, please,” Flavius said, gesturing non-distinctly toward the waste bin in the corner. Cassius went and retrieved the garbage pail, handing it to his lord. Flavius placed it on the mattress next to him without raising his head.

After a moment of silence, Cassius spoke up again. “Is there anything else you require, my lord?”

“Promise me, young Cassius, that even when your pageship ends, that you’ll return to Asariel with me and stay in my house,” Flavius asked.

This was his second term serving Magister Arrentius and the lord had asked him to summer at his manor last year and again this year once the session ended. He was about halfway of what was typically a four-year term that pages from the Circle typically served in the Magisterium. Once that ended, he would finish his final two years of study in the Circle and then be assigned wherever they felt he was needed.

Most Praeteri ended up in functionary duties somewhere in the Imperium, which had shaped his expectations that he would eventually end up in the bowels of Minrathous somewhere processing papers until and up to such a time the Circle might have a different need of him. Outside of the prospect of clerking, at best he might be drafted into martial service against the Qunari, if the war effort needed more mages, albeit expendable ones, to enter the battle.

“Of course, my lord,” Cassius agreed, “if that is your desire.”

“Good, good,” Flavius said. “That will be all for tonight.”

Cassius bowed his head. “If you need me, my lord, I’ll be just in the other room. Don’t hesitate to call for me.”

Cassius turned and exited Magister Arrentius’ chamber, slipping behind the door of the adjoining page’s quarters. He shut the door, but did not latch it, leaving it open a crack so he could better hear if Magister Arrentius called to him, or, more likely, if he could hear vomiting from the next room.

Cassius lit the single candle on his desk as he began to undress, carefully folding and hanging his clothes so that they might not wrinkle as he slipped into his evening clothes.

There was a half-finished letter Magister Arrentius had asked him to write back to his family that was on his desk and needing attention before he turned in for the night. The magister had promised his family he would write every day. 

Flavius had been able to meet that promise for the first five days they returned to Minrathous, but then the session got busy and he had asked Cassius to draft a letter on days when he could not find the time to finish one himself. Today had already been shaping up to be one of those days even before the long dinner, so Cassius had started the letter earlier in the afternoon.

Cassius sat back down at the desk, pushed his finger to the candle to grow the size of the flame a bit so he could see better and picked up the pen. Even to today, Cassius never felt comfortable writing. It had taken several months and multiple beatings from the instructors in the Circle to finally teach him to read and write over his first two years in training there, but in time he had finally developed the skills.

Still, he never felt confident in the words he put to a page, always fearing some glaring error that he was incapable of recognizing.

He picked up where he had left off earlier in the day:

_ … Magister Arrentius spent most of the day in committee meetings he described as “bland” before attending an evening dinner with some of the other magisters. After discussing matters of business, their conversation turned more casual and eventually settled on the topic of Magister Arrentius’ new daughter. _

_ The other men offered their sincere congratulations on the addition of the newest child to his family. Magister Arrentius also spoke at length about his older daughters, his intelligent Valerie, his polite Andria, his talkative Kordelia and his bouncy Servilia. _

_ After dinner, Magister Arrentius asked whether I would join the family again in Asariel after this term and beyond. I was happy to agree, and I look forward to seeing you all again this summer when the session is completed here in the capital. I pray that I am not a burden or inconvenience to your family and if you would rather not have me stay, I will be obliged to return to the Circle with great appreciation and gratitude for everything the family has provided me to this point. _

Cassius lifted the pen as he heard an unusual noise from the other room. He stopped, listening, hearing just the low tone through the wall, too quiet to be distinguishable. Cassius placed the pen aside and rose from the desk, stepping quietly back to the door, where he peeked through the crack to check on his lord.

Magister Arrentius had not moved from his place sitting on the edge of the bed, but Cassius was able to discern the source of the sound he had heard. 

Cassius could see his lord, with his face in his hands, and hear the sound of low weeping.

Cassius watched for a moment, as the proud and honorable Magister Arrentius he knew and served melted, transforming before his eyes into Flavius Five-Daughters.

The sight turned Cassius’ stomach, to see his lord in such a state, as he turned the knob and quietly edged the door fully closed until the walls and doors shielded him from the sound of sobs.

Cassius returned to the desk and picked up the pen again, returning to the letter.

_ … I hope that this session goes quickly, for I know deep in my heart that Magister Arrentius desires to be home with his beloved family and away from Minrathous as soon as possible. I will do my best to ease his burdens here and encourage him to return home as soon as humanly possible. I am certain Magister Arrentius cannot wait to return to his home filled with the love of his wife and five beautiful, wonderful daughters. _

_ Ever in service to Magister Arrentius, _

_ Cassius Terro _

* * *

**_Minrathous 9:41 Dragon_ **

Cassius stopped after stepping inside the gatehouse at the head of the Great Bridge of Minrathous, looking at the jutting spires of buildings from the island city in the near distance.

The city looked even older and darker than the last time he saw it just months before, if that was possible. Perhaps it was due to dark clouds out to sea in the distance blocking out most of the sun, but Minrathous looked almost ready to crumble at a moment’s notice. Cassius knew, as most mages did, that it was magic and little else that held up a good number of the oldest buildings, ancient enchantments that kept the stones in their places, needing to be checked and reinforced every few years to keep the glyphs strong.

Should those spells ever fade and unravel, the city might indeed topple, with one large spire falling into the next and then the next until the entire city was little more than a pile of dusty rubble. Centuries ago, the Imperial capital was the gem of Thedas, the most populous and most powerful city in the world. Nowadays, like the rest of the Imperium, it was a reflection of its previous power.

Still, it had ancient charm that few other places in Thedas could claim. Yes, it was old, collapsing and filthy in spots. But it was original and authentic, unlike the gaudy cosmetics Orlesians painted their cities in like the whores that lived there and unlike the sticks and mud the dog lords in Ferelden called buildings.

“She looks like shit, don’t she?”

Fiora spit out of the corner of her mouth, nearly hitting a traveler walking past her right side as she crossed her arms over her chest and looked at the jagged towers of Minrathous’ skyline. She shuddered.

“Don’t be crude,” Cassius said with a grin.

“Can’t help it,” Fiora said, trying to spit again but getting little more than spray of foam out of the corner of her mouth. She wiped it away with her hand. “Lot of bad memories here.”

“You didn’t have to come,” Cassius reminded her.

“And let you march up here with a big old box of you-know-what by yourself? You must be crazy.” She glanced over her shoulder to the cart, making sure the box of gold was still there and there were no urchins crawling over the wagon like ants. There weren’t, for now at least. Once they got inside the city proper, well, that might be a different story.

“I’m touched you care so much about my safety,” Cassius said.

Fiora snorted. “Got nothing to do with your safety, Terro. If we got jumped on the highway and you ended up dead in a ditch, me and that box would be making for the coast as fast as we could to the first pirate ship willing to take me on.”

She ran her thumb along the padded grip of the saber at her right hip, then put it in her mouth, then popped it out of her cheek as it made a nice hollow pop noise. She smiled to herself as she likely envisioned herself on the deck of some pirate ship sailing off into the sunset. Her fantasies always seemed to involve piracy, for reasons that Cassius couldn’t exactly explain.

“Five more years,” she said wistfully as she looked at the towers of Minrathous again. “Five more years and maybe I’ll never see this hellhole again.”

That drew a disgusted look from some merchant sitting atop a cart as they rolled past to the left heading out onto the Imperial Highway. Fiora didn’t seem to notice. Cassius raised a hand by way of apology to the passing man.

“Will you cry when I’m gone, Terro?” she asked.

“I’ll weep myself to sleep,” he said. “Come on, we’re in the way.”

As Cassius started walking, Fiora fell in one step behind him and one step to the right, the place befitting a slave following her master.

Ten years ago, at the end of the legislative session, as they returned for home, Magister Arrentius had made a detour on his way out of the city to check the slave market. The summer had been a good one and the expectation was the fields would need extra hands to bring in the harvest. Buying slaves midsummer always cost a premium and they were worth half as much come winter, but Flavius swore he badly needed the extra help.

Magister Arrentius had browsed the market, muttering displeasure at the stock and arguing with the slavemonger over prices. Cassius had stepped away to walk around the market on his own, looking at the men, women and children wearing manacles around their necks, wrists and ankles. Mostly elves. A few humans. A few hulking Qunari captured in conquest.

As he had walked by, one elf girl had stood up and whistled at him. Was he a mage? What was he looking for? A cook? A cleaner? A courier? A knife? A house girl? Whatever it was, she could do it. Would do it. She could make it worth his while, as long as he promised to get her out of there today. 

She didn’t explain why, but her eyes darted around wildly as she pressed her palms together as best she could with her wrists divided by the rusted iron bands around her narrow arms.

“See something you like Cassius?” Magister Arrentius had asked with a wink.

Cassius had reddened at the suggestion. “No, my lord.”

The elf girls’ hands had dropped as she started to sink.

Magister Arrentius ignored his timid politeness and called the slavemonger over. They negotiated over a price. A few minutes later, the owner was turning keys in the locks that kept her chained to the ground and turned the keys and the chains over to Flavius.

Flavius thanked the man, then promptly extended the keys to Cassius. “My gift to you, for all you do.”

It was that day, ten years ago, that Cassius had come to own his first and only slave.

Despite the advice of the overseer back at the manor not to take an interest, not to see the slaves as people but to see them as any other inanimate tool he might use to accomplish a job, Cassius had spent part of that summer learning more about her as she followed him around, tending to his needs and doing chores.

Fiora was three years his elder and she hadn’t always been a slave. She didn’t talk about it directly, but she had sold herself into slavery in exchange for a hefty sum that she had needed to pay off some debt. What debt and to whom, even ten years on she had never told him, only that the sum she had been paid for a fifteen-year indentureship either hadn’t been quite enough or simply wasn’t satisfying to whomever she owed the debt.

Fiora had been convinced that if she hadn’t gotten sold out of the market that day that the slavemonger would have come to work the next morning to find his stock of slaves minus one elf girl but plus a bloody mess that needed to be cleaned up from his platform.

Once taller than Cassius in her youth, he had passed her when he hit his growth during his teen years. She was thin and wiry, as most elves, with coal-black hair. In his youth, Cassius had never really known what color her hair was when full grown, because the slaves around the Arrentius manor were routinely shaved, a requirement of the overseer as a way to ensure they had nowhere to hide anything they might think of pilfering from around the house.

Following his graduation from the Circle and his engagement to the magister’s second daughter, Cassius had approached the overseer and informed him that Fiora was now expressly under his purview. The overseer had not argued and from that day on he had spared her the rigid rules and discipline imposed on the rest of the house slaves. The first thing she had wanted to do when informed of it was grow her hair out. 

She had let a long plume of hair grow for several months, although she continued to shave her head on both sides, just as a wink to the rigid overseer, even as the length of hair down the middle of head continued growing without a blade ever being put to it.

Cassius didn’t believe she had ever cut it since. Tied tightly at the back of her head, the tail of black hair now stretched down nearly to her waist.

In the four years since he took more direct stewardship of her, Fiora had developed enough of a personality that he was sure if the overseer ever got a chance again he would quickly attempt to beat out of her. But she had also become a trusted servant and confidant to Cassius. He often found it difficult to remember what his life was like before she had been brought to Asariel in his service.

Cassius couldn’t be sure he wouldn’t weep on the day five years from now when her contract expired and she became Liberati.

“Hey Terro,” she shouted from behind him.

“Yes?” he said, looking back over his shoulder.

“Do I have to call you ‘Magister Terro’ now?” Fiora asked with a smirk.

Cassius snorted and chuckled as he turned his head back around. At best, if his child on the way was a boy, he might someday inherit Magister Arrentius’ seat in the Magisterium if no better options arose before then. But for him? He would be lucky if the other magisters paid him any mind at all during this special endeavor.

He was forever bound to his low birth.

“Absolutely not.”

* * *

Cassius traced the familiar pattern on the lock to Magister Arrentius’ quarters in the Magisterium.

He looked over the room, much as he remembered it from the last time they were here in the winter just before he had left south with the Venatori. It felt kind of like home. Although it had been eight years since he last served as Flavius’ page and had since been accompanying him to Minrathous as a retinue, he still spent an inordinate amount of time in this room compared to the spartan accommodations rented in the capital where he laid his head at night.

Cassius lowered his pack to the floor, noticing that the lamps in the room had already been lit before he arrived. He looked to his right at the door to the adjoining page’s quarters and noticed it was ajar.

“Hello?” he announced from the door.

As he thought, a moment later a young man appeared in the doorway. “Oh, Magister Arrentius, I wasn’t aware you were arriving so soon. Forgive me!” The young page bowed his head in apology.

Fiora laughed from behind him and Cassius waved her quiet.

“I’m not Magister Arrentius,” Cassius made sure to clear up first. “I’m his retainer, Cassius Terro. I’m here as proxy in my lord’s stead. This is my servant, Fiora.”

“His  _ slave _ Fiora,” she made sure to announce even though no one had asked. Anyone who had eyes in the Imperium could tell the difference between a slave and a freeman, but she liked to impress the point on people to make them uncomfortable.

It seemed to work, as the young man fidgeted. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m new and… well, anyway, I’m Alex, Magister’s Arrentius’ new page.”

He looked fresh, probably a new thirteen-year-old starting his first term at the Magisterium. He didn’t have an accent, which meant he probably came from the Circle right here in the capital.

“What happened to Paige?” Cassius asked as he lifted his pack and swung it over to the bed. Paige was a young woman from Carastes, a second-generation Praeteri. Her older brother had already given birth to a son who had the gift, making him a third generation and putting her another step closer to Laetan status. She was only fifteen at last session and would have another year before aging out. She always introduced herself as Paige the Page with a big smile, finding humor in the homophone.

“They moved her, I think. I’m sorry, I don’t know,” Alex said.

Cassius began digging into his bag, pulling out some clothes and laying them out on the bed. “Are you a Praeteri, Alex?”

“Laetan, sir,” he answered from the door of the page’s quarters.

“If you’re Laetan, I should be calling you ‘sir,’ not the other way around,” Cassius said.

“Well, you’re still my elder, sir,” the boy said.

“And how are your studies going in the Circle?” Cassius asked.

The boy paused, then said, “Well enough, sir.”

“That’s good,” Cassius said. Alex sounded polite but too timid. He would go through his Harrowing soon enough. If he didn’t find some confidence in himself by then, he would certainly find it when face-to-face with a demon.

It had been years at the time since the times Cassius had wet himself in his sleep as a child in the Circle, but he had awoken from the Harrowing ritual that night in his teens to urine-soaked robes. He spent two sleepless nights following it, forcing himself to stay awake, before his mind finally starting caving to exhaustion and the Enchanters forced him to bed with a draught.

He still dreamed of that night sometimes, and the way the demon had snaked into the core of his mind, how she preyed on his desire and how she had almost succeeded in exploiting it to claim his physical body. The apprentices in the Circle often didn’t talk about their Harrowings, but from what he had gathered, he had come perilously close to failing the Circle’s most extreme exam.

“Is there anything you need, Master Terro?” the page asked.

“Cassius,” he corrected the page before continuing, “and yes, please fetch a folding cot for my servant.”

Fiora groaned. “That big bed and you’re going to make me sleep on a cot?”

“Yes,” he said, then reminded her, “You can’t be trusted.”

His slave scoffed. “When have I ever tried anything with you, Terro?”

“Never, because I don’t let you,” he reminded her of that, too. “I hear stories about you.”

“About me?” she said feigned offense. More than once she had been found tumbling with the other slaves. “I am a perfect lady.”

“Say the woman who pitched herself as a potential ‘house girl’ to me at fourteen,” he reminded her.

“You’re going there again? You were a teenage boy at the slave market and I really needed to get out of there. You can’t blame me for playing to the odds,” she protested.

“I can,” Cassius disagreed with a smirk. “And do.”

He glanced past Fiora to where Alex was still standing there, watching the back-and-forth, perhaps stunned at the casual banter between slave and owner. No doubt wherever he came from slaves were neither seen nor heard. That was much more the norm in the Imperium than this.

Cassius cleared his throat, “The cot, Alex?”

That seemed to snap the boy out of his stupor. “Oh, yes, of course, sir, right away!”

He bounded to the door and opened it, only to surprise a young woman on the other side of it, with her hand raised just about to knock. She yelped in surprise as Alex nearly fell off his feet too.

“Apologies,” the girl said, holding her hand over her heart as she took a breath. “I didn’t expect the door to swing open so suddenly.”

Alex offered his own apologies and squeezed past her out the door to fetch the cot.

“Can I help you, madam?” Cassius asked the girl, who looked old enough to be a page in her final year. She was tall with blonde hair and curls and carried herself with a confidence that the young Alex didn’t. Either she was even more high born or, at least, used to being around the more high born.

“Are you Cassius Terro, the Praeteri who serves Magister Arrentius?” she asked.

That gave Cassius pause. He had only just arrived and even Flavius’ own assigned page hadn’t known who he was. As a Praeteri, no one in Minrathous needed to or cared to know who he was. That gave him a fair idea why she had come.

“You must be here on behalf of Dorian Pavus’ contact, yes?” Cassius asked as he walked over to the door to greet her.

“Yes sir,” she confirmed as she pulled her other hand from behind her back and presented him with an envelope. “An invitation, from my mistress.”

Cassius opened the envelope, pulling out the decorative card inside adorned in fanciful script that no doubt the page had calligraphed with her own hand:

_ Dear Cassius Terro, _

_ You are cordially invited to dinner and drinks this evening at dusk in my chambers here in the Magisterium. I hope to discuss your experiences in the south and the future of the Imperium. _

_ I hope you don’t think my invitation too forward, as I know you’ve just arrived in Minrathous, but I hate to waste time. Please come alone. _

_ I look forward to your company this evening. Dorian tells me you’re a rather curious type. I am eager to see that for myself. _

_ In hopes of friendship, _

Cassius looked at the significantly larger signature written in a different hand at the bottom of the card. He wondered why he hadn’t thought of her earlier. There were far fewer women in the Magisterium and fewer still that might be aligned with the astray Pavus heir, so he wondered why he hadn’t remembered her name.

“Tell your mistress I accept her invitation and look forward to meeting her tonight,” Cassius said as he tapped the card with a finger. 

“Very well, sir. Thank you,” the page said with a nod and began to head back to report the acceptance to her mistress.

As she left, leaving Cassius in the doorway, he glanced back down at the card and the three large letters signed in blue ink.

_ Mae _


End file.
